Sunday, August 11, 2013

Science Week Begins 10-18 August 2013

Today SmallestOne and I went to Science Alive, once again a geat experience with many fantastic science disciplines on display with hands on events. There were microscopes to look through, fossil digs, brain hats and the ubiquitous slime (what kid of any age doen't like slime).

There was a great robotics workshop too, SmallestOne got o do his first ever robotics program, which worked!

There were two new things this year, and it seemed almost every other booth had them: vortex cannon and 3D printers. When I last went in 2011, neither were to be seen, but this year they were in profucion. The 3D printers were amazing, SmallestOne got a printed whistle out of it, the leaps and bound this technology is making is astounding.

The vortex cannon were pretty good too, SmallestOne got to have a go and together we shot prefect circles of smoke into the ceiling. Some people could shoot rings through previous rings.

One that was not so charming was the vortex cannon that was linked to an X-Box video camera, it could target and fire smoke rings at the nearest person. The kids loved it, laughing deligtedly as smoke ring hit them. but a robotic system that can tagert and fire somekrings at individuals can target and fire othe, not so nice things.